Maleficent
"You poor simple fools; thinking you could defeat me! ME! The mistress of all evil!" -Maleficent to the Three Good Fairies 'Maleficent '''is an evil fairy, Mal`s mother, and the main antagonist of both Disney`s 1959 feature film, ''Sleeping Beauty, ''and the Disney Channel Original Movie, ''Descendants. Maleficent is an incarnation of pure evil, and responsible for all the misfortune in King Stefan`s kingdom. She takes offense at not being invited to the christening of Princess Aurora and attempts revenge on King Stefan and the Queen by cursing Aurora. She appears to be particularly disdainful of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, her polar opposites, who do all in their power to keep Maleficent`s overwhelming evil magic at bay. With her dark, elegant design, dramatic and flamboyant and unlimited arsenal of magic powers at her command, Maleficent is one of the most popular and recognizable Disney Villains, in addition to being one of the primary member of the official franchise. Background Development The style for Sleeping Beauty was based on the art of Eyvind Earle, who claimed to have a 'Pre-Renaissance' style, with strong vertical lines and gothic elegance. Earle was involved with the design of all the characters and designed and painted most of the backgrounds in the film. Though early sketches depict a hag-like witch, it was decided that Maleficent`s final, elegant design suited Earle`s backgrounds. Davis' decision to make Maleficent a powerful fairy rather than an old crone may have also been influenced by Eleanor Audley`s voice, which he recalled suggested a very powerful character. The design for Maleficent`s clothes occurred to Davis when he was looking through a book on Medieval art; one of the manuscript images featured a religious figure with long robes, the ends of which resembled flames. Davis incorporated this into Maleficent`s final design. He based the sides of her horns on the wings of a bat, and the horns themselves on the horns of the devil. Animation After Eleanor Audley`s vocal and live-action performances for Lady Tremaine, Walt Disney personally suggested that she be considered for the voice and live-action reference for Maleficent. Davis praised Eleanor Audley`s live-action performance for the character, claiming that she created many of Maleficent`s expressions and mannerisms that were ultimately used in the animation. The animators were more limited with how their characters could move against the detailed backgrounds. The manner in which Maleficent moved, perhaps limited by her costume, later inspired Andreas Deja to take a similar route when animating Jafar for Aladdin. Personality Maleficent represents true evil. She is ruthless, dark and devious, who will do whatever it takes to achieve her evil goals. Additionally, she is very sinister, which is shown when she taunts Prince Phillip after she captures him. Her most famous quote ("You poor simple fools, thinking you could defeat me. ME!? The mistress of all evil?") indicates that she thinks herself above everyone, even calling her closest allies "her pets" in a pseudo-affectionate manner. Other than herself, the only entity that she seems to have a genuine care for is her pet raven, Diablo. This is especially evident in her horror at seeing the aftermath of Diablo getting turned to stone. Maleficent also seems to have some emotional instability. This is especially evident in her reaction to the discovery that her goons spent the previous 16 years looking for a baby, where she pitched a nearly truly evil laughing fit before reacting violently towards her goons. Maleficent, on top of her deviousness, is very misleading in her personality. But, underneath the mask of stoicism, Maleficent unleashes the full brunt of her wrath with a smile, which shows how she relishes in the pain of others. This is displayed during her first appearance during Aurora's birthday ceremony. When Merryweather states bluntly, "You weren't wanted," Maleficent pretends to be shocked and hurt, remarking, "In that event, I'd best be on my way." But then she turned around and cast a curse upon Aurora, cackling while taking in the sweet revenge she had attained. Owing to her misleading personality, she also expresses sarcasm, which is especially evident during her psychological torture of Prince Phillip where Maleficent states that when he leaves, he will be "up on his noble steed, straight and tall" despite the vision making very obvious that he and his steed were barely even able to leave due to being near-death. Maleficent is soft-spoken, proper, and elegant, and has two possible motivations for her crimes, either out of pride, considering she curses Aurora because Stefan didn't invite her to the christening, or she is simply a monster who enjoys being evil. The latter is further suggested by her admitting that she's not offended at all by them not inviting her just prior to cursing Aurora. Physical appearance Maleficent is a tall, slender, beautiful, pale green-skinned (although some appearances of her depict her with gray skin) woman with a narrow face and a prominent chin. She also has yellow eyes and black horns, which is symbolic of her dark magic. She is clad in a black-and-purple robe with bat wing-like edges, underneath her robe, she wears a dress with the same color pallet but with some red instead of purple, and wears a gold ring with a large mysterious circular black stone in it. Both the horns and bat wing-like robe represent and foreshadow her dragon form. She carries a staff with a glowing green orb at the tip through which she casts her spells. Maleficent is capable of shapeshifting at will into numerous forms, including a floating hypnotic light resembling a will-o'-the-wisp and a massive, monstrous black-and-purple dragon. Her dragon form is largely black, with her underbelly starting from just below her jaw up to the tip of her tail being purple-colored and ribbed. Her ears are webbed and her eyes are a pupilless green, while her tongue and the interior of her mouth is colored yellow. Her claws and teeth are also colored black, and she possesses spines across her back, some of which form a three-pronged tip at her tail, bearing a faint similarity to the Chauve-souris. Her wings are fairly tiny especially compared to her overall size, although they still seem to allow her to fly to some degree. 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